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From Christmas carols to lighting the kinara during Kwanzaa and eating specific food on New Year’s Day, the holiday season is packed with a series of traditions that celebrate African American history, strength, culture and the work that continues toward equity and justice for all.

While families, churches and native Washingtonians anticipate new beginnings at the top of January, many will start 2025 with time-tested traditions that uphold the foundation and historic values of the Black community, including: hosting Watch Night services, praying for the future, and maintaining generations of heritage with meal preparations and practices.

“We are really paying homage to the proud traditions we come from, while also looking at the future and what we hope we can maintain going forward,” said Southeast, D.C. native, the Rt. Rev. Paula Clark, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Chicago. “I stand on the shoulders of giants…so I’ve carried [their] traditions forward and [I] hold them there, because they are who I am.”

History of a Black American Holiday Tradition 

The mission behind how Black households celebrate the new year is simple, yet culturally significant: uplifting the histories, legacies and forward-thinking spirit of our ancestors. 

“[Our ancestors] made something out of nothing. [Black people] were always limited, always told ‘You can’t have this, can’t have that,’ so we made the best of what we had,” said Howard University alumna Lauren Smith, who is from Houston, Texas. “[New Year’s] just reminds us how resilient our ancestors were, and how they persevered to survive.”

Dating back to slavery, enslaved African Americans established these valuable, Southern-based practices as a means of survival and liberation during a time when Black culture – and people – were entirely dismissed. 

Historians originate the use of pork, greens and black eyed peas – a staple in modern New Year’s Day meals – to times when slaves made use of limited resources among plantation owners and sharecroppers, eventually passing the torch through generations of survivors. Additionally, the desire to bang pots and pans when the clock strikes midnight honors the pot-bangin’ that oppressed ancestors once echoed in moments of celebration. 

Today, many Black Americans enjoy eating a host of symbolic foods on Jan. 1: black eyed peas for good luck, cornbread for prosperity, collard greens for financial wealth, and pork, to ensure progression and abundance in the new year.

“Especially in the times that we live in now,” Smith explained, “I think it’s very important to remember our traditions and that we can and we will survive this, because we’ve done it plenty of times before.”

As a bishop, Clark noted the intersection of Christian values and diasporic culture is evident through seasonal traditions such as New Year’s, touting the necessity to sustain Black history, while proving African American Black culture is still impassioned through the generations of descendants alive today. 

“There is a scripture that says, ‘We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,’ and we (African Americans) are surrounded by…the elders [who] really look after and forge a way forward for us,” Clark told The Informer. “The whole notion…gives me the impression, and really the ability to say my forbearers withstood difficult and straining times with grace and fortitude. A grace that I have [now] inherited.”

Religious Leaders Emphasize Holiday’s Purpose, Hopes for the Future 

In addition to culinary cultural traditions, New Year’s Eve Watch Night services symbolize a sacred hour of Black history: Dec. 31, 1882, the night before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. 

According to Capital B News, That 1882 New Year’s Eve, many enslaved Black people across the South gathered in anticipation of freedom. Today, faith-based institutions have continued the tradition of looking forward to freedom, while praying for the year ahead, including City of Praise in Landover, Maryland. 

Under Bishop Joel Peebles, City of Praise celebrates New Year’s Eve with a “Community Reinvestment” program that includes food, gifts, carnival rides, and a concert featuring Gospel artist Israel Houghton’s and his group Israel & New Breed.

“How we bring in the New Year has a significant impact on how that new year goes,” Peebles told The Informer. “For many of us, 2024 was a tough year, so I’m going to burst into 2025 with praise realizing that my next will be better than my now.”

Other faith leaders of the community celebrate the holiday with community engagement and motivational testaments. 

The Rev. Robin Walker Shanks, pastor of the New Pentecostal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, is kicking off 2025 with food and fellowship on Dec. 31, followed by a friendly game of Family Feud and prayers for the new year. 

Meanwhile, the Rev. Vandy Kennedy, 87, retired Pastor of the Walker Mill Baptist Church in Capitol Heights, touts this time as a way to reassert faith values and practice self-reflection.

“The key part is people are sick and are in dire need of healing,” said Kennedy, who revealed he recently had sepsis. “People forget about the healing power of God. God showed me what life was all about and he healed me. It’s not about the black eyed peas and rice, it’s about who Christ is.” 

Clark, who is also the mother of ��������app Managing Editor Micha Green, said the new year brings much opportunity for growth and change, something she specifically hopes to see come out of 2025. 

“I want people in our communities to be supported and cared for, and [for] kindness and compassion to be the way forward,” she told The Informer. “In the upcoming year, my hope for the future is that people express love to one another in a very visible and tangible and palpable way.”